His First War With Himself
by Crispy-6usiness
Summary: When Piko is given the most exciting chance of his life, he starts to think his boring day to day life is going in the right direction. That is, until secrets are revealed, mysteries unwound, relationships broken, and he realizes he may not make it out alive. (PikoRin, GumiLen, OLuiver)
1. Chapter 1

**His First War With Himself - Chapter One - EDIT**

I decided that I still wasn't happy at all with this chapter so I re-re-wrote it. Chapter 3 coming soon!

=X=

The moment his name was called, Piko knew exactly who he would choose.

He barely heard it through the deafening cheers of the crowd, each person in it waiting for their name to be called. He himself was dying from the suspense, he had only been waiting for, oh, three whole years for this chance.

Nonetheless, he heard robotic voice say "Utatane Piko, choose your teammate," and his breath caught in his throat.

All eyes in the seemingly endless sea of people surrounding the boy were on him, wondering who he would choose, and some hoping it would be them.

He cleared his throat and tried his best to flash a smug smile to mask his nerves, "Kagamine Len!"

Everyone collectively let out a breath. One's partner in this game could be the difference between victory and defeat, and with Len by his side, there was no way he could lose.

A new name was called as he searched through the mass of bodies for the short blond boy from his spot in P section in the crowd. When he found him, Len was moving his stare from the screen, to Piko, and back again, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. What a weirdo.

Piko looked up at the huge screen in the centre of the square they were in, towering over the everyone for miles.

His eyes widened, too, at what was illuminated there.

"Utatane Piko + Kagamine Rin"

=X=

In a rage, Piko tore off his headset, disconnecting his player from the online networking site, Third World. Technically he wasn't supposed to disconnect during the selection, but he had chosen his partner so there wasn't a lot the admins could do about it.

_His partner_. He grumbled and spun around in the blue leather chair that was positioned in front of his dinosaur of a computer. He didn't use it, nobody ever used computers any more, but he liked to keep it around. Old things fascinated him.

He had almost anticipated that something like this would happen, TW's vocal recognition system was always faulty, but he couldn't believe that he was paired with Len's sister, the one who had told him he was a dingus several times. That was a terrible understatement, he thought. Several times a day, probably more.

He flopped on to his bed, imagining his dreams and four years of hard work being flushed down the toilet. _Four. Years._

Piko and his friends had spent four years slowly clawing their way up to the top of the heap to get the chance to enter the online battle royale called the Third World War. People from all over the world trained their butts of for the opportunity that Piko just had, and somehow he had found possibly the dumbest way to mess it all up.

He was such a dingus.

Ok, no. He had to stop with this self-loathing thing, he needed something to take his mind off of how disappointed his friends must have been with him.

He lifted his hands off of his face and tapped one of his palms. It lit up and a small, bright screen appeared under his skin, showing different little icons and a small clock. It was 12:30. Piko groaned, somehow he had managed to stay up past midnight every night this week.

He tapped an icon of an old style television, with a frame and a stand and everything. Most people, Piko thought, wouldn't even know what it was, all they knew was that if they tapped it, they could watch TV on their palm.

'Advertisements' was a better word to use than TV now. Nobody bothered to produce movies or TV shows anymore, why watch someone else do something when you could just upload yourself to TW and experience it yourself?

Piko had heard stories about times when people lived in separate houses instead of monstrously tall skyscrapers and actually watched TV for entertainment. He had to hear them from creepy old people on the Internet, though, so who knew if they were true. Nowadays, the he only time when anything good actually came on the TV was when the war was going on. It was covered live on almost every channel in every language. Nobody missed out on this virtual war.

Piko had watched it as many times as he could in the past. He thought it was actually kind of cool. The war was the equivalent of a particularly gory horror movie with a huge cash prize at the end.

Some people called the participants violent and greedy, but nobody ever really died in the war, it was all virtual. The greedy part was usually right, though.  
The goal wasn't even to kill everyone in your path, either, like people made it seem. You won by identifying and destroying the goal item, which could be anything from a place to an animal to an object, but there were always clues hidden in the place the war was located in.

He swiped his finger along his palm, flipping through channels. Ad, ad, boring, boring, boring...

After a little while of browsing aimlessly and slowly falling asleep, Piko came across a channel showing profiles of the participants in the war. He was instantly wide awake again.

They were into the L's already. There were at least two hundred people in the war each year, and there were two commentators, a man and a woman, giving a bit of background information on each of the pairs, so the list was moving excruciatingly slowly. He knew who's name was coming up soon though, so he stuck around.

"Len Kagamine," said the female voice enthusiastically. A picture of him in the real world appeared on the screen, he was sitting on a patch of unnaturally green grass and flashing a smile. He looked almost identical to the online Len Kagamine, that was how TW's character creation system was programmed. The first time you upload yourself, it stores all of your information (that means _all_ of it) and uses your DNA patterns to create an extremely accurate online character. Only the best hackers could trick the system to make themselves taller or curvier or all around more attractive, but those people were either insane, or terrorists. Piko shuddered and decided not to think about the net terrorists.

He turned his attention back to the screen.

"Only eighteen years old, and already passed the required level to enter the war, isn't that amazing, Leon?" Piko groaned. It was too late at night to listen to these peppy Internet addicts.

"That it is, Lola," Leon replied with a laugh, "Kagamine lives in the USA, and his twin sister, Rin Kagamine is also participating in the war.

"Kagamine specializes in magic, usually powerful healing magic, and has said that he doesn't like hand to hand combat," the two voices paused to laugh a little there. The chances of surviving though to the end of the war without using weapons were slim, especially when they may not end up in a place with virtual magic enabled.

The female, Lola, continued, "His partner is Gumi Kamui. She's nineteen, and lives in Japan with her family of six." He squinted at her picture. So her hair was that weird shade of green on person, too. She was at some sort of beach, her arms around the shoulders of two people who were cut out of the image, and she was grinning like a maniac. Piko was starting to think that was her normal face, he had never once seen her not smiling, "Kamui specializes in long range combat and has..." Piko tuned out the commentators, realizing what Len being partnered with Gumi meant.

It meant that he would have to spend the war with not only Rin, but Gumi, who had the hots for Len and didn't make any effort to be subtle about it. On top if that, Rin wanted to be partners with Gumi, so now they would have to join Piko's team, and the boys would have to split the prize money with them if they won, which they were _already_ splitting between the four of them.

He lay there staring at the ceiling, fuming once again. He knew there was no way around it, but it still made him angry. He didn't like Rin and didn't like being _around_ Rin.

Piko's attention snapped back to the screen again when another name he recognized was called.

"Next is Oliver , born and raised in Scotland," Leon announced in the exact same way that Lola had announced Len's name. A picture of him popped up on screen, too. It looked like it was supposed to be a school photo for a yearbook (he guessed they still had those is Scotland), but Oliver had stuck out his tongue with a goofy smile and made a rude gesture with his hand. Piko imagined that whoever had paid for that photo didn't appreciate his sense of humor. Typical Oliver.

Lola took over, "He specializes in close combat, and uses a variety of weapons. appears to be a very well rounded fighter!" It was true, and Piko was glad. Oliver and his partner were both part of his team, but the two of them had known each other long before either of them met Piko and Len.

"His partner is Lui Hibiki. He lives in Japan, and both he and his partner are 16," he had expected her to say more, but instead she paused to let the picture appear on screen, and didn't say any more about his personal life.

Piko peered at the photo. It was strange. It appeared to be taken from behind, and it looked like Lui didn't even notice someone was taking a picture of him. He was laughing down at what appeared to be the top of Oliver's head which was cut off at the bottom of the screen as Lui was almost twice as tall as Oliver.

What struck him as odd, however was how it was obviously not from the real world. The photo was done just a little too well to be taken by a real human, and the orange sky in the background was much too vibrant for a normal sunset. Not to mention that Oliver, who lived an ocean and a half away from Lui, was in the picture with him. Whoever took it had obviously tried to fix it up to make it look more real, but they didn't to a very good job of it.

Why, Piko wondered, didn't he have a photo? Maybe he was fat and ugly in person and had hacked his player to look like it did, and he didn't want to ruin his image. Piko snorted. Yeah right, Lui wasn't a terrorist or insane. He was a total pushover and incredibly shy. If anyone in Piko's group if friends was going to be a net terrorist, it would be Oliver. Possibly Gumi. Lui was probably just so shy that he didn't want them to put up a picture of him for the world to see, which was fair enough. Piko himself was nervous to see which of the many terrible pictures of _him_ they would use.

Leon finished off, "Hibiki specializes in offensive magic and close combat,"  
Piko stuck around through a few more names, knowing his would come up soon.

When it did, Piko was less than impressed with the picture they had chosen. It was one of him digging through a local junkyard, before it was paved over to make room for more skyscrapers. He had dirt smeared on his face and clothes and looked kind of like he had crawled out of an oil pipe. They could have used any if the many photos of him on the Internet, that one of him at a soccer tournament holding up a trophy, or the one with his champion sister. It was almost like this broadcast was trying to make him look bad in front of everyone. He felt his face heat up.

"Piko Utatane, from Australia, age 19! He specializes in physical offence, usually close combat. Earlier tonight, it appeared that something went wrong at the selection, and he actually ended up with the wrong partner!" Leon laughed. Piko felt his face heat up even more.

"It did! That's really too bad!" Lola chuckled in response, "But I'm sure he'll be alright, because his partner is Rin Kagamine, 18 years old, who lives in the USA with her twin brother. She also specializes in close physical combat, she's fast as a bullet, and very powerful for her age-"

Piko covered the screen with his other hand, turning it off. He didn't care if Rin was good or not, he and Len had trained together for this, came up with plans and special moves together. It all meant nothing now!

Great, he was angry again. Instead of rolling over and going to sleep like he probably should have, he wend back over to his desk and put his headset back on. Killing NPCs always calmed him down.

=X=

The net had quieted down considerably since the selection ended, which was better for Piko, he hated wading through crowds.

He had made his way to the area of TW that his team always met in. It was an RPG themed world that when you entered you gained classic RPG-esque classes and powers, like magician or thief, suited to your personal strangers and weaknesses.

Piko liked that part, he got mad swordsmanship skills to better beat the snot out of NPCs.

He had hoped that maybe he could meet up with them and make sure everyone knew what to do the next day when the war started.

Lui, who acted as the team's strategist, had suggested before the selection had started that they all head towards the highest place in the area so that they had a definite meeting place and whoever made it there first could look out for the rest from above. The boys agreed, but that was before Gumi and Rin were part of their team, so he wanted to make sure the girls knew what to do.

But mostly he just wanted to beat some enemies.

He wandered about the deep forest, the huge, leafy trees, which were warm autumn-y reds and oranges, towered far above him, making him feel small and insignificant.

He didn't like that feeling, so he chopped one down with his sword in one swipe. After a few hours, it would respawn, leaving no trace that Piko had ever been here, so he didn't really feel any remorse for the virtual tree.

The tall top part of the tree wobbled and began to tip. Piko smiled, feeling satisfied with his work, until he heard a shreik.

Oh no. Oh _god_ no.

He ran out from behind the wall of trees, heading to the source of the scream. He couldn't see who it was through the darkness of midnight, but whoever had made the sound was about to get crushed by the top of the tree that _he_ had cut down.

Without thinking, he lunged toward the figure and shoved them out of the way, the two of them tumbling over each other in the grass. The person, a girl, Piko realized with a flushed face, let out another cry, and this time, he recognized it.

"_Rin_!?" He yelled once they had stopped rolling in the long grass. She gaped at him.

"_Piko_!?" She made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat and shoved him off of her roughly, "Get the _hell_ off of me, ugh! What were you thinking!?" She gestured wildly at the giant log, now sitting heavily in the grass.

Piko stood, and brushed the dirt off of his clothes, "What was _I_ thinking? What were _you_ thinking, stalking around a combative area in silent mode? Do you have a death wish!?"

She threw her arms in the air, "You dropped a tree on me, in what way this _my_ fault!?"

"Do you know the plan?" Piko yelled. Rin looked at him, taken by surprise.

"Excuse me?"

"Do. You. Know. The. Plan?" He lowered his voice to a growl, "I didn't come here to argue with you. I wanted to make sure you knew the plan. So?"

Rin narrowed her eyes, staring daggers at him, "Yes, I do," she pulled out a small translucent screen that lit up the moment her fingers made contact with it, showing a log of messages, "Your friend told me. The pretty one."

Lui. Thank goodness for Lui. He was probably the only person in all of TW who used the messaging system, so it had to be him. He said he didn't have a working mic, so never used the real-time speech function, but he had never taken steps to get a new one, so everyone just assumed he was mute or something. Either way, he had told Rin so that Piko didn't have to, so Piko probably owed him now.

That was all he had to hear from Rin, so without saying another word, he disconnected.

=X=

Aaah, I changed a lot of things. I was just going to tweak it, but I ended up re-writing the whole chapter,,,  
I'm so much happier with this, though, and I hope all of you guys are, too! d(ovo)  
Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**His First War With Himself - Chapter 2**

I don't consider myself an author, I'm definitely more of an artist. I actually only wrote this to flesh out this AU, so it's not going to be the most beautifully written thing.  
Just keep that in mind while you're reading, ahahah,, orz

=X=

Piko woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and raring to go. Today was the day! He squinted at the hologram clock hovering beside his bed, he was blind without his glasses in the real world, something he didn't have to worry about in TW. It read 7:45am, which was perfect, his parents wouldn't be up for at least another twenty minutes, so he had plenty of time to grab some breakfast and upload himself without having to convince his mom that he didn't need to go to school. It's not like anything would be happening at school anyway, everybody there would be preoccupied with the war, too.

He slipped out of bed, grabbed his glasses, and tiptoed down the dark stairs, where the kitchen was located. He sighed at how sluggish he felt, even if he was on all the sports teams at school, he was still a thousand times slower in the real world than in the virtual world.

He walked silently into the kitchen and grabbed what was left of a loaf or bread, and downed it whole. He shuddered. The bread was dry and bland (and possibly over it's expiry date), but Piko was too half asleep to put any more effort into breakfast, so it would have to do.

He began tiptoeing back towards the stairs when he almost bumped into someone in the darkness. Oh no, Piko hoped that it was anyone but his mom.  
"...Good morning," It was Miki, his adopted sister, she didn't like to talk much, so she was much easier to deal with.

Piko waved and started up the stairs, "Yeah, you too," He was halfway back up to his room when she spoke up again.

"I came down to wish you luck," Surprised, Piko stopped and turned to look at her, "I think you have a good chance,"

Miki was pretty cool, she was already at the level that you needed to be to enter the war long before Piko and his friends had even started training, but she had declined every time she was asked to enter. It was probably because she was always so busy with university and real life things. Piko still thought that if Miki did enter the war, any competition wouldn't stand a chance, so hearing praise from her actually meant a lot.

"Uh, thanks, Miki," He tried to come up with something more meaningful to say, but she interrupted first.

"Try not to die, that would be embarrassing for all of us" She deadpanned, then stalked off into the shadows of the kitchen.

Piko rolled his eyes and walked back to his room, "Gee, thanks,"

He plunked down on the chair by his computer and took a deep breath before putting on his headset.

=X=

The Internet was a blur of activity and sounds the second he connected. It was always like this on the day the war started, there were festivities in every world, and in less than an hour, thousands of people, online and offline, would be watching TW's best try to beat each other to a pulp.

Piko had known that much, but it just dawned on him now that they would be watching _him_, at first he felt like he was going to throw up, but then he felt kind of powerful. He liked showing off.

He was currently in the world that served as sort of a town square for TW, where the selection had taken place the night before. Today, the huge cylindrical screen in the centre of the area was split into sections, each one showing a different tv channel talking about war, instead of the names of the pairs that were entering like it was during the selection.

Everyone on his team had agreed to meet in this world today and upload to the world that hosted the war together, so he was constantly searching through the crowd for his friends, but Piko could hardly see two feet in front of him, the square was packed _that_ tightly. He wandered blindly in circles for a little while, trying (and failing) to not bump into anyone, until someone in the crowd grabbed his arm and pulled him off to the side.

He yelled in surprise, and tried in vain to wriggle his arm free from whoever was gripping it so tightly.

He had expected it to be Len or Gumi, but this was not even close. The second he saw a flash of a jungle of blonde hair, he knew he had somehow gotten himself into a bad situation _already_.

"Piko-ko~," His filled with dread a that voice, it was Avanna. She was one of the more famous participants, and her team, made up of Seeu, Cul, Miku and herself, was known for being so silent and deadly that if you encountered them, you hardly stood a chance. Piko was strong, but her partner, Seeu, the one who had seized his arm, was stronger, "That's your name, right? Chat with me,"

Piko glared daggers at her, "Seriously? The competition hasn't even started yet and you're already trying to kill off players half your age?" He put on his best innocent face and tried to tug his arm away, but failed miserably, "How low can you go?"

Avanna merely laughed at him, and slowly moved closer, "Beat you up? Oh Piko, don't be like that! I really just want to make you an offer, I think you might like it, too!"

Piko looked towards Seeu to see her with a slightly crazy grin on her face. She didn't say anything, just stood there, staring at him through her tangled bangs. Nobody in the crowd of people constantly moving around them payed them any notice, either, it looked like Piko would have to get himself out of this one alone.

"I think you'd be wrong," He snapped. He had to come up with a way to escape from Seeu's superhuman grip (he was probably going to have bruises on his arm after this), and the message flashing in the corner of his vision wasn't helping him concentrate.

Hold on- message?

"Piko, where are you? We need to upload soon!" It said. Piko silently thanked Oliver for introducing him to his mute friend.

Avanna was still talking about whatever, but Piko tuned her out and squeezed his eyes shut, spelling out a message in his mind. It wasn't as simple as he thought it would be, and he was unskilled, so the message looked kind of like "Avvanra anf hwr psrtnwr corn eterd me, neaf help!", but he sent it anyway, hoping that Lui would get the idea. A new message appeared a few seconds later.

"Wait. What? Avanna?" Piko was about to attempt a reply when a knee to the gut snapped him back to reality. He yelped in shock and doubled over.

"Are you even listening to me!?" Avanna leaned down to him, getting as close as possible and growling, "Your team. My team. Alliance. Got it?"

"And what if I decline, dare I ask?" Piko hissed through gritted teeth. He had tired of this conversation as soon as it had started, and his arm was starting to hurt from Seeu's heavy grip. He needed to get out of here, _now_.

Avanna clicked her tongue, "Just know that as good as you think you and your little band of misfits are, my team can erase yours-" She snapped her manicured fingers, "-like this. So, what do you say, Piko?"

He had hardly opened his mouth before something slammed into Seeu's side, which caused her to stumble, releasing Piko's arm. Avanna straightened and called Seeu's name, so Piko seized the opportunity to kick Avanna's feet out from under her and take off running down a side street, barely hearing a screech and a thunk as the woman hit the ground. He knew he had gotten lucky, nobody caught Avanna off gaurd, except, apparently, Rin.

The girl ran along behind, easily catching up to Piko, who was the fastest runner in his entire school. She must have been the one who tackled Seeu, she was incredibly fast, plus, there were no special abilities in the world they were currently in, which meant that this was how fast she was offline. Piko hated to admit it, but he was impressed.

He slowed when he was sure that Avanna and her partner weren't following him, and waited for Rin to catch up.

She stopped in front of him and smiled, "You're welcome," Piko just rolled his eyes.

Another message appeared in his vision, "Piko, do you even know how the message system works? ^^^"

What were those arrows for? He looked up, and surely enough, Gumi, Len, Lui and Oliver were leaning over the edge of one of the large, sleek black buildings that lined the sides of the stone road.

"I know how the goddamn system works," Piko called up to them, "I was just... Under pressure!"

Oliver snorted, "He can't even admit he's bad at something as insignificant as texting,"

"Like you could do any better," he snapped, "Does anyone besides Lui even use it? I bet you're all just as bad as me!" Piko knew he was being childish, but he couldn't help but bicker with Oliver.

"C'mon guys, don't start," Gumi said, even though she was giggling at him herself, "We only have three minutes left to upload!"

Piko and Rin scaled the building using nearest fire escape and the six of them took off across the roof. There were so many winding streets and places to get lost in this area that it was much quicker just travel over them, rather than through them.

They reached what everyone in TW called 'The Gate' with only a minute and a half to spare. It was a huge, extravagant doorway that stretched up to the roofs of the buildings on either side of it, with blue engravings on it's metallic frame that changed between anything from dragons to robots to superheroes depending on where in TW you wanted to go. Once you stepped into the darkness inside the doorway, it could take you anywhere in TW within seconds.  
The group jumped down from the rooftops and stopped in front of the gate, keeping close together so that they wouldn't get separated in the crowd.

Everyone stood there for a second, taking it all in. Once they stepped through this gateway, they would be entering what was essentially a fight to the death. The thought made Piko laugh a little, it sounded like such a stupid idea, but he was more excited than ever to get in there.

Gumi poked his side and giggled, "You look a little dazed, it's not too late to back out!"

Piko laughed, "Are you kidding!? There's no going back now!" The rest of the group nodded in agreement, they had worked much too hard to just go home, and nobody actually died in the war, so the had nothing to fear, right?

"That's what I like to hear!" Gumi sang and linked arms with Len, pulling him into the gate, "C'mon, let's get going!"

Piko ran after them, not waiting for Rin, and entered the familiar darkness inside the gateway he had gone through many, many times in the past to get to the group's meeting place.

Only this time, it was different.

=X=

When Piko came out of the darkness, he found himself alone in an unbearably bright, white room. It was almost as if the walls themselves were emitting light. He wasn't sure what was supposed to go on before the war, as this was his first one, so he thought that he might have gone to the wrong place for a second, until Rin came out of the gate, too, shielding her eyes.

She squinted around the room, slowly adjusting to the brightness, "Is this it?" She said, her voice echoing lazily off the walls.

Piko hoped this wasn't all there was to see, the room was about the size of a small apartment, and it was completely empty, no windows, no doors, save for the gate the two had just exited.

"I guess this must be some kind of waiting room," he said slowly, checking the digital clock in the upper right corner if his vision. it read 8:59, "We won't be here for long though, there's like, less than a minute left,"

Rin nodded and crossed her arms, staring intensely at one of the perfect white walls so that she didn't have to look at him.

Only a moment of silence passed before room filled with a loud whirring noise, causing Rin and Piko to jump. Ever so slowly, the wall on the opposite side of the gate began to slide open like an incredibly well oiled garage door.

Two of them stared at the opening that was forming, an even brighter light shining through it, and wondered what could be on the other side. The air outside of their little white room didn't seem to be any colder or warmer than the air inside, so at least they didn't have to worry about freezing or burning to death.

The whirring stopped as soon as it had started, and soon silence filled their ears. Rhe wall was completely gone, yet they still couldn't see anything outside through the bright light.

Rin turned to Piko, looking at him for the first time since they had arrived. She was smiling like she didn't have a care in the world, "Shall we go?"

Piko closed his eyes and stepped through the opening, not wanting to blind himself, and immediately felt a cool breeze on this cheek.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a completely different place, the white room gone, and Rin still next to him.

The first thing he noticed was their clothes. When they had entered the area, it appeared that their normal outfits had changed too. Rin was in a simple yellow hoodie and a black pleated skirt, while Piko was wearing a sky blue hoodie and dress pants. They looked sort of like rogue high school students, so Piko assumed that they didn't get any special abilities in this area, which disappointed him just a little bit.

They were in a city, much like the one that they had left only minutes before, with pretty stone streets and incredibly tall, sleek buildings with fancy golden accents on the doors and roofs, only this city looked completely abandoned.  
In some places, the road looked torn up and some buildings had their doors thrown wide open, as if whoever had left, they had done it in a hurry.

The sky was filled with large rainclouds that looked like they would pour their contents out on Piko and Rin at any moment, but in the tiny cracks between the clouds he could see that the sky itself was a deep orange, much like the colour of a sunset, only a little brighter. The two of them stood in the middle of a road, with no other teams in sight. As real as it all looked (he had to remind himself that it wasn't), the whole experience seemed so surreal to him.

Rin tapped him on the shoulder, "Over there," she said. She was pointing to a huge black skyscraper that towered over the rest of the buildings, "Think that's the tallest thing around?"

"Looks like it," he replied, scanning the horizon for anything that could be taller. Somehow, he felt like other teams might have had the same plan that Piko's was following, and that meant that he and Rin would be running into other, more bloodthirsty pairs very soon. He knew for sure Avanna and her team would be there, waiting for him, and he was in no hurry to see her again. There was no way around it though, he had to meet up with Len, even if that meant taking on a team of creepy twenty year-olds, "I guess that's where we're going, then!"

=X=

Whee, now the fun parts can start! Depending on how graphic later chapters get, I may up the rating to M, but I don't think it's going to come to that, ehe,,  
Also, what do you guys think about POV switches? There would be one POV per chapter, and the story would still be Piko-centric, but I may switch to another team every once and a while to change things up. That is, if everyone is ok with it. (óvò)

=Review replies=  
iDontCare: Thank you for the review! Ahah, I really like GumiLen too, and it will most likely be endgame, unless I suddenly change my mind and make it PikoLen and GumiRin instead (I like GumiLen better though, so don't worry)!  
I've never watched Future Diary, so I wouldn't know, but I hope it's not too similar, ehehehe (v)  
Thank you, I'm really glad you like it!

Japaneserockergirl: Thank you for the review! Ah, I'd say this is more like The Eye Of Minds than The Hunger Games, it's a great book (by James Dashner) and I really recommend it, if you have any free time!  
I've been writing all my recent fanfictions on my iPod, and it doesn't let you double space, but I went back and fixed the first chapter (I hope), is that better? (óvò)  
I know I should have spread out the information a little bit, but I didn't know where else I would have put it, and I wanted to get it all out in the first chapter so I can focus more on the plot in later chapters. This chapter should have more action in it, if I did a good enough job writing it,,  
I also went back and explained about that a little bit. He needed to explain because they had only ever watched it on TV, never participated, so they wouldn't know /exactly/ how it works. Also, it was a way to explain to the reader how the war works, I guess I should have found a better way to do that, though,,  
Being descriptive is something I'm really, really bad at. I went back and tried to add a little more detail to chapter one, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do. Hopefully I was a little more descriptive with this chapter? ( let's all agree that chapter one never happened and I'll redo it later, orz)  
Ack! That's a little embarrassing, but I fixed it! I must have missed that while I was editing,,,,,,,,, Thank you! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Thkjas09: Thank you for the review! I'm glad you like it, here's an update!


	3. Chapter 3

**His First War With Himself - Chapter 3**

I updated chapter one, so if you haven't already, I suggest you go back and re-read it! \(ovo)

=X=

The more Piko walked along the shiny metal roofs of the buildings, the more he realized how much the area reminded him of his home. The buildings in his city were probably more than twice as tall as the ones here, and they were all made of the same sleek black metal, but there was a smell in the air that left his nose stinging and a greyish tint to everything from the cloud cover that was exactly the same.

Piko didn't like his home city much, for obvious reasons, so he had hoped that the war would take place somewhere more interesting. At least he knew how things worked around a city like this. All cities around the world followed plans that were all almost identical to each other.

Piko and Rin had climbed up on to one of the shorter buildings and worked their way over the land, creeping slowly toward the tower, so that they wouldn't be spotted by any other teams.

So far they had gone undetected. The area was silent except for the occasional chirp from a passing virtual bird, which only made Piko feel even more uneasy. The more time they went without encountering another, more bloodthirsty gang, the more it felt like someone was about to jump out of nowhere and kill them both.

Rin hadn't talked to him at all since they set off, either. She just wanted to get to Gumi and leave Piko behind. That was her plan, once the two of them got to the tower, she would run off with her best friend and they would win by themselves. They didn't need the boys.

She was beginning to get angry, Piko was slowing her down. Gumi knew how to keep up with her, but Piko kept slowing his pace every once in a while, looking around nervously.

He wasn't afraid of being defeated. Much. He and Rin both knew how to fight, but so did the other teams, and they had more experience. Of course, now that he was in the war Piko wasn't sure if he could stomach killing another person, even virtually.

They walked on, occasionally having to leap over the gaps between buildings, without an encounter, until Piko heard a crash and a scream.

He froze. It was faint, like it had come from somewhere far off, but it was loud enough for Piko to catch it. It sounded like breaking glass and a woman's scream. He waited for it to happen again, thinking it may have been his imagination, not moving a muscle.

Rin turned around to look back at him. It was clear from her expression the she had run out of patience with him long ago. She obviously hadn't heard what he had.

"What are you-" Piko shushed her. Her face darkened, and she took a step towards him.

"Did you just-" He shushed her again, holding his hands up.

"I think I just heard something. Like, another team," He explained quietly. She looked around at the other buildings surrounding them. If there really was a team around, they could be anywhere, and Rin and Piko were sitting ducks from where they were.

"I didn't..." She trailed off looking back at Piko. There was none of her usual spunky attitude in her eyes. For the first time, there was just fear, "Are you sure?"

Piko was about to say that he /wasn't/ sure, and that they might have been worrying for nothing, when he heard it again. Shattering glass.

This time, it came from right above them.

=X=

Len and Gumi had gotten lucky.

When the two of them entered the strange, dystopian landscape, they had found themselves in what might have served as a shopping mall before it was abandoned.

Len could see colourful light from holographic advertisements lining the black tiled walls shining weakly out from under layers of dust and dirt, and many of the doorways leading into large, dimly lit stores were blocked by fallen parts of the shiny black ceilings. All of the lights in the hall they were standing in we're flickering, or dead.

Len felt a shiver climb up his spin. It looked so much like the shopping centre in central TW.

Gumi gritted her teeth, "Geez, this place gives me the creeps."

"We'll be fine," Len reached for her hand, smiling gently at her, "There aren't any ghosts in TW,"

"But there _are_ murderers," she thought, and gripped Len's hand a little tighter.

Len looked up at her, he has never seen Gumi so on edge before.

"At least we're in a mall," She said suddenly, raising her voice to sound more confident and pulling Len off down the dark tiled floors, "We can search for supplies before we head out!"

The two of them searched the hallways that weren't completely mangled or destroyed for anything useful, but most of the stores sold clothing or music or home decor. Len had known that there wasn't much hope of finding anything useful for a fight in a shopping mall that's mostly catered to teens.

Gumi sighed quietly and slowed down, beginning to lose hope herself. She saw coats and hats and things in a few of the less destroyed stores, which would have been useful if they knew what the weather outside was like. They hadn't come across any windows yet so for all she knew, they could be in the middle of the desert.

Then, as if the creators of the war were giving her a hint, the dim light reflected off of something in the back of a rubble covered shop.

It was just too dark inside to make out what exactly it was that caught her eye, but somehow she knew it had to be important. She tugged on Len's arm.

"Look," Gumi pointed into the store. The place looked like it would fall apart any second, the parts of the floor that hasn't fallen to the floor below were covered with dusty magazines and sports equipment that the place used to sell, "What do you think that is?"

Len squinted into the entrance, leaning over a large part of the ceiling that had crumbled in front of it. It took him few seconds, but he finally saw what Gumi had pointed out.

It was a small rectangle of blue metal with a black button on each of the thin sides. It looked to Len like a high-tech taser, like a lot of the people he knew at school carried with them at all times. New-New Chicago could be a dangerous place sometimes.

It was great for defending yourself in a dangerous city, and it was great for defending yourself in a dangerous war.

Len leaned into the entrance a little more and saw that around the counter in the back, there was a stash of weapons, from old style guns to baseball bats to lasers. He glanced worriedly around the room, it almost looked like a trap.

"So?" Gumi tapped him on the shoulder, "Should we check it out?"

Len considered it for a second. It was much too early in the war for anyone to gather all of those weapons and set up a trap for them, but the room still looked unstable, and there was no way of telling if they were alone in the mall.

He swallowed, "We need weapons, and we may not get another chance like this..."

"...We have to go in," Gumi said decidedly and squeezed his arm.

Len nodded and the two of them hopped over the slice of ceiling obstructing the entrance. The moment they stepped foot in the store, the dim, wavering light flickered on and they saw that the whole store was covered in piles of various weapons, on the floor, shelves, tables, everywhere. Gumi sucked in a breath and skipped over to one of the piles on the floor, grinning.

"I knew it! This is great, there are enough weapons for everyone on our team, and more!"

"Yeah!" Len agreed, stepping carefully over a gaping hole in the ground, towards the back table. To think he had been so nervous about not being able to defend his team just a few minutes ago. He bent down to pick up a laser gun off the white tiles.

Piko would be ecstatic.

Just then, Gumi's head snapped up from the pile of weapons she was searching through.

"I heard a voice," she whispered. Gumi had amazing hearing, she could hear a mouse on the other side of the city if she tried hard enough. Ok, maybe not, but she did hear someone laughing down the hall.

"I thought you told me there were no ghosts here," she tried to sound confident, but she ended up stuttering.

The two of them just held their breaths.

"...Whole place to ourselves!" Len caught one voice laugh. They probably wouldn't be thrilled to find out that they weren't alone in the mall. And they sounded armed.

Another voice said something he couldn't quite make out, and they both burst out into a fit of mad laughter.

Len glanced at Gumi, who crouched slowly to pick up a taser off the ground. As she did, her elbow bumped the table beside her and it fell to the side, making a loud clanging noise. Len cringed

The laughing stopped.

They had been found.

He heard the two in the hall suddenly sprint towards the store, letting out a few whoops like two hungry monkeys racing towards a food source. Gumi threw herself behind a few heavy boxes and Len dove behind the counter, just as something shot the light out of the ceiling, plunging the room into darkness.

Everything was silent.

"We know you're in here," the first voice said smoothly, not a hint of fear in her voice, "Come out now and we won't kill you," she paused, "Oh wait!" The second voice laughed out loud again.

Len's heart pounded in his chest as he tried to quiet his heavy breathing. He needed a weapon. The closest one was the taser, just outside of the cover created by the counter.

"Looks like we're going to have to go in," said the second voice, who sounded more amused than anything.

Len closed his eyes and took deep a breath through his nose. He had to move now, if the two made it too far into the store, they would be found immediately. He began inching as quietly as he could towards the edge of the counter, keeping his eyes on the taser.

Slow footsteps entered the store, their shoes squeaking on the shiny floor. Gumi counted them.

Two. Len was close to the weapon he was going for.

Five. He wasn't close enough though.

Eight. She needed to buy him some time.

Ten. Her eyes darted around the room and finally landed on a fist-sized part of the store's ceiling on the ground near her. She snatched it up.

Fifteen. She pitched it over the top of the boxes she was hiding behind and braced herself.

Len was almost to the edge, the taser within arms reach. All he needed was to grab it and he could get Gumi and himself out of there safely. He slowly extended his arm toward it, sucking in a breath.

He was so close, when suddenly the first voice cursed and a gunshot rang out. Len's breath caught in his throat and he retracted his arm, jumping back from the edge.

He breathed. He was in one piece, maybe a little shaken, but-

Gumi! His stomach lurched at the thought that his partner might be dead. He turned his head to look over the edge at her, breathing heavily.

She had shoved herself against the wall and her eyes were as big as galaxies, but she was also in one piece. Her makeshift cannonball had hit the first enemy square in the face and the second had put a bullet through the box only inches from her head.

She made eye contact with Len and nodded towards the taser. They needed to get out. Len took another breath. He reached past the edge through the darkness, closed his fingers around the cold metal surface of the taser, and squeezed.

The weapon lit up with electricity, filling the room with a cold blue light for a split second. He saw Gumi, grinning wildly. He saw the small girl with the layered long black hair, clutching her eye and pointing an old gun at the box, the realization of what had happened just beginning to appear on her face. He saw the tall, muscular boy beside her with the short blue hair, staring directly at Len, his expression somewhere between shock and fury. He saw the weapon send a charge flying through the air straight towards the girl. And then and he saw nothing.

Len jumped up from his hiding place, completely blind in the darkness again, and ran to Gumi, groping the ground for her hand. Once he had it secured in his, he sprinted in the general direction of the door.

The girl screamed and there was a thump as her body hit the ground. Oh god, Len hoped he hadn't killed her.

"Tianyi!?" The boy screamed, stumbling around the room. Len knew the boy was just as blind as he was, so all he had to do was find the door before he found his partner.

Len sped up and banged his leg on the piece of debris blocking the door, sending him tumbling over it face first to the hallway floor. Dang, he had forgotten that was there.

Gumi hopped right over it, scooped the smaller boy into her arms, and sprinted down the hall. Gumi was fast, and she couldn't hear the other team following her, so soon she stopped and leaned on the cool wall to catch her breath.

"Man," She sighed, looking down at the dizzy blonde clinging to her, "That was intense. You ok there, Lenny?"

He just nodded. He had smashed his face into the tiles back at the shop, and the thought that he might have killed someone made him sick, so he was a little off. Gumi was happy to carry him, so it didn't matter. She was a little worried about the blood pouring from his nose, though

Wait. She could see his face, there was a soft warm light coming from somewhere. A window? She looked around, It was coming from up the staircase down the hall. She headed up and gasped at the sight.

The walls of the hall were completely made of glass, it was like a lookout at the top of a tower. From it, she could see _everywhere_. The bright orange sun peeked through the clouds, illuminating the city expanding in all directions around them, the parts that were reduced to barely more than rubble, and the parts that looked brand new.

Gumi and Len were at the highest point in the city.

=X=

Oh man oh man this is so much fun to write!

Halfway through this my spellcheck stopped working, so if you catch any errors, please let me know!

**=Review Replies= **

Blanckary: thank you for reviewing! Ehehe, I know, they're some of my favourite pairings.

Bereft of Relevance: Thank you for reviewing, I'm glad you like it!


	4. Chapter 4

**His First War With Himself - Chapter 4**

(;o;)

=X=

Piko hit the floor, a shower of broken glass falling around him. He tried to heave himself off the shiny surface of the roof, but there was a tremendous weight on him.

"Stay down, brat. Don't make me beat your skull in," Someone above him said through a heavy accent. Piko ignored them and squirmed, trying to get them off of his body.

Something hard slammed into his back and he fell to the ground again, gasping for air.

"I told you to _stay put!_ Ann, grab the girl,"

Rin, a few feet away, covered her face with her arms, feeling a few shards of the broken window pierce the bright yellow fabric of her sleeves. She edged backwards until she couldn't feel glass crackling under her shoes, but suddenly, her foot hit nothing but air. She gasped and tried to shift her weight forward, but it was too late.

The world slowed down. Rin's stomach flipped and her arms flew from her face, fumbling for something, anything to hold on to to stop her from falling. She squeezed her eyes shut, oh god, this was how she was going to lose, not by getting PKd by the top player, but by falling off of a damn building in the first few hours of the game.

"Piko!" Rin shrieked. Of course he wasn't there when she needed him. She felt all of the air leave her lungs as her other foot slipped off if the edge of the building, then, she came to a stop.

Rin cracked one of her eyes open. Someone had grabbed her arm, and it wasn't Piko, as she had thought it would be. This was a woman, most likely Ann, the man's partner. She looked like she was in her late twenties, with white-blonde hair that fell over her shoulders in shiny waves. She almost could have been beautiful, if she wasn't trying to kill Rin.

"You should be more careful, honey," She said in a mocking tone, her beautiful features twisted into a cold smirk, "You could have died,"

Rin just stared, trying to look like she wasn't terrified of falling ten stories towards hard pavement. The woman stared back, studying her face with her sharp blue eyes. After a moment, the smirk fell from her face and was replaced by a look of surprise.

"I know you..." She said slowly, leaning closer to Rin. Rin tried to move away, but there wasn't a lot she could do from her position, balancing off the edge of a skyscraper on one foot. A wide grin split open Ann's face "You're Rin Kagamine!" She raised her voice as if she was calling out to a friend she hadn't seen in years, and then looked behind her to call out to her partner, "Yohio, we got _Rin Kagamine_!"

Her partner hooted and punched the air. Rin looked over the woman's shoulder to get a good look at the man. He had an angular face and straight golden hair, an he was perched on Rin's partner, who sprawled out on the ground.

Rin felt a pang of guilt, she had expected him to help her when she should have been helping him. She had no time to think about it, though. The woman turned her head back to squint at Rin.

"You're pretty good at this game, yeah?" Her bright blue eyes studied her like an animal studies it's prey before the kill.

Rin swallowed and nodded slowly. Maybe if she could make herself useful to these two, she would let Rin and Piko live long enough to escape. That is, if Piko was still alive. She felt her stomach twist again.

"That could be a problem for me and my partner," she said simply and let go of Rin's arm.

Rin screamed and felt herself start falling all over again, but it stopped before she could fall even a few inches. This time, Ann wrapped an arm around Rin's waist and hauled her over shoulder.

"But... Killing you now would be pointless. I have bigger plans for you two," Rin quickly got over her shock and started trying to kick and squirm her way out of Ann's strong grip.

"Put me _down_," Rin growled, "Put me down, or I swear to god I'll-"

"You'll what?" She said as she started walking back to Yohio and Piko, still lying face down in the broken glass, "Last time I checked, you don't have any weapons, and your partner there looks pretty out of it. Now stop squirming or I might just accidentally drop you back off the side of this building."

She stopped in front of her partner, who stood up and threw Piko over his shoulder like a rag doll. He didn't move, not good. Yohio arched an eyebrow and looked the Ann over once.

"You didn't kill her?" Yohio asked, struggling to make out the words through his accent. Ann waved him off.

"Nah. I figured we could use some hostages," Rin ground her teeth together, seething, "These two have a pretty big alliance, like, three teams. I figure we can make them do whatever we want if we have these two alive." Yohio smirked.

"That's why you're in charge, babe," he said, flashing a wink at Ann, who laughed.

The two of started carrying their hostages towards the edge of the building, when a loud whining alarm went off, and the ground exploded under them.

Rin blacked out.

=X=

Oliver wasn't surprised when his eyes adjusted and he found himself in a dark, run down office building.

His team had trained in a fantasy setting forever, and just by looking at all the mundane things scattered around the room, Oliver could see that this was no RPG. Why would the creators of the war make things easy for him? They wouldn't.

Lui was the first to step further into the room. He stooped to pick up a rusty stapler, a message appearing in Oliver's vision.

"Doesn't look like anybody works here." It said.

"What about ghost accountants?" Oliver replied, grinning. He heard Lui blow air out if his nose from across the room, the equivalent of laughing.

Oliver walked over to one of the many windows, all of them covered by white electronically controlled blinds, and pulled one of them as hard as he could.

It broke off, and the rest of them followed, the deteriorating metal crumbling off of the window. The room filled with a red light. Oliver shielded his eyes and peered out at the ruined landscape.

"Hey Lui," he called, furrowing his eyebrows, "Come look at this."

He walked over and his eyes widened at the sight.

"Look familiar?" Oliver asked, gesturing to the patterns of buildings and the roads, at least ten floors below them. Lui nodded.

"It looks just like TW's town square..." He messaged. To most people, it would look like any other city in the entire world, but Oliver and Lui had spent so long mapping out the ever expanding town square in TW, that they both picked up on the tiny details that set this one apart from the rest. The positions of the stores, the tiny bits of buildings that were clumsily added on to the roofs of other buildings, even the billboards and signs were the same, so it was easily recognizable even though the rubble.

The biggest giveaway, though, was the gate. It was more than a pile of shards of metal and glass, but it couldn't be anything else. The real world didn't have gates, so there was no question. It was the same town square, but as if the net terrorists had succeeded in destroying TW, which brought up a new question.

"Why would the creators put us in a place like this?" Lui messaged after a moment. Oliver was thinking the same thing.

"Maybe that wanted to scare players? Make the war seem more real?" Even as he said it, Oliver wasn't convinced that that was the reason.

"...Yeah, except that the admins like to pretend that the net terrorists don't exist. This seems a little... Counterproductive."

He had a point. The city looked barren, as if the terrorists had succeeded and then everyone just gave up, there was nobody fighting back against them. This kind of thing, Oliver thought, would only make them more compelled to attack.

A new massage appeared in the corner of Oliver's vision, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Well, we should find a way out of here. We'll need to find everyone else, and we can't do that from in here."

Oliver nodded and latched on to the taller boy's arm, all the dark atmosphere from before completely gone, "There should be an emergency staircase to the lobby somewhere, assuming the elevators don't work!"

The two boys only needed to look for a minute or two before they found the large metal door in the hallway that lead to the fire escape. There was a sign on it that said _"EMERGENCY FIRE ESCAPE. _

_WILL AUTOMATICALLY UNLOCK WHEN DANGER IS DETECTED._

_ALARM WILL SOUND WHEN OPEN." _in bold red letters. Oliver stared at it. Of course it was locked, of course it was protected by an alarm. If they opened this door and the alarm went off, everyone inside (and probably outside) the building would know where they were. And to get in in the first place they would have to start a fire or something, and even then the unlocking system may not even work, and then they would be dead meat.

Oliver pressed a palm to his forehead. This was a test set up by the creators. They were put here for a reason, would they take a chance and try to open it, or would they wait there and be found by another team? Oliver honestly wasn't sure. Lui put a hand on his shoulder and sent a message.

"...Let's wait it out, I'm sure there's another way to get out of here." He looked down at Oliver, who lowered his palm from his face and nodded.

"Alright. Let's take another look around. Don't touch the door, just in case the alarm does work," Lui smiled, gave him a thumbs up, and turned to go explore down the hall.

Oliver turned in the opposite direction, already not liking being in this place without his friend, and headed into the next office.

It was large and filled with the unnerving red light from outside, as some of the heavy blinds had already fallen off. The black and white cabinets that had once lined the walls had fallen over, the files and electronic papers inside them thrown all over the black tiled floor. A dark marble desk sat in front of the huge half-covered window, mysteriously intact compared to the rest of the room. What caught Oliver's attention first, however, was the single, shiny hologram projector sitting in the centre if the desk.

He stepped closer to it, afraid that if he got too close, it would blow up in his face. As he stepped into the range if it's sensors, the touch screen that took up most of the flat, rectangular piece of metal lit up with a single name in blocky white letters.

"_LILY_" it said, then under it in much smaller letters was the word "_PASSWORD_" and an input box.

Oliver stared at the screen for a second. Why would something like this be here? He reached out carefully and tried to lift the projector off of the desk. It wouldn't budge, which meant that whoever had made this area put this in this room for a reason.

Oliver was about to try a random password, when an alarm started blaring. He jumped back from the device. Had Lui opened the door? He ran to the entrance of the office and stuck his head out. Lui was standing in the entrance of another office, looking just as surprised as Oliver.

"I thought we were going to leave the door alone?" Oliver shouted over the alarm. Lui shook his head in the direction of the exit, it was closed.

He hadn't opened it, which mean someone else had, but it only unlocked when-

Oliver gasped and grabbed Lui's arm, pulling him through the emergency exit. Somewhere in this building, something bad was about to happen, and they needed to get out before it did.

Oliver and Lui flew down the metal staircase in the darkness with just the intermittent red floodlights to keep them from falling over each other. They made it down maybe five floors before they Oliver slammed straight into someone.

"Augh, sorry Lu-" he began to say, before he realized that whoever he had run into was not Lui, they were much too short. The floodlights came back on and Oliver could just make out who was in front of him.

The first thing he saw were her huge blue eyes, wide with terror and surprise. Her long blonde bangs fell over parts of her face and the rest of her hair tumbled messily over her shoulders and back. She was really pretty, in a natural, messy kind of way. She stared back at Oliver, but only for a second before the floodlights faded back out and her partner called out to her.

"Lily, come on!" He voice was shaky and filled with dread, "We have to go! Now!"

Oliver felt the girl, Lily, flit away up the stairs, her shoes clanking against the metal. He stared after her, trying to watch her as she disappeared in the darkness. Lily...?

Suddenly, he remembered the situation he was in and the air caught in his throat. Who knew how long they had left?

He fumbled for his partner's hand, letting out a breath when his fingers wrapped around the other boy's. The two continued sprinting down further and further, watching floor numbers on signs fly by, until they reached the ground floor.

Oliver threw himself at the metal door and the two boys barely made it into the bright lobby before the bomb went off.

Oliver blacked out.

=X=

Sorry for the long wait! I may rewrite this later, I sort of rushed the end because I wanted to get this out before tomorrow ehehehe...

**=Review Replies=**

Cartoon-Slash-fangirl: Thabk you for the review! Heheh, sorry, here's the conclusion, sort of...

Ahah, well, expect a lot of that later on, that's about the only thing I'm good at writing, cute couple things,,

iDontCare: I'm glad you like it! Here's an update!


	5. Chapter 5

**His First War With Himself - Chapter 5**

Sorry for the wait! It's a shorter chapter today, hopefully the next one will be better...

**=X=**

Everything around him was dark. All around him, there was the sound of a violent wind.

Wait, no, that was just his breathing.

Piko groaned and tried to roll over on to his back, but stopped when a throbbing pain in his side flared up. Why did everything hurt so damn much?

"Piko?" The sound bounced through the darkness. It sounded muffled and far away, but Piko immediately recognized it as his partner's voice.

He tried to call out to her, but all he could manage was a low moan from the back of his throat. He could hear running shoes slamming against metal, and through the sound of his breathing, which had calmed quite a bit, he could also hear...

Fire? And heavy things, maybe stones, crashing against the ground, shaking it violently. It sounded like a landslide was happening. What was going on?

Suddenly, whatever lid was on Piko's dark little box of ignorance was thrown off and a blinding light flooded in around him. Silhouetted against the blinding orange sky, was Rin, leaning over the edge of the hole Piko had gotten himself into.

"Piko! Thank god..." She murmured to herself and out a long breath.

"Rin," Piko croaked up to her, "What's...? What happened?" Rin extended her hand to him. He took it and heaved himself up despite the pain in his side.

Rin just sighed waved an arm at her surroundings as she helped the boy out of the pit. Once Piko's eyes fully adjusted to the light, he gasped a little and turned in a circle.

All around them was the shattered, flaming remains of the metal office building. It was a good thing that he and Rin had been on top of it, for they hadn't been buried under the rubble. He hoped that nobody else was in the building.

"How did this..." He began, but trailed off, his face paling considerably.

A bomb. he remembered waking up sore and angry only moments before something exploded. He must have gotten trapped under a falling piece of metal that protected him from being impaled by anything else.

He gulped. That was lucky.

"Piko? Are you ok? You look a little sick..." Rin said slowly. Piko blew some of his bangs out if his eyes, since when did she care?

"Yeah," He paused and glanced at the girl. She had a huge gash down one of her arms and a dark bruise blossoming on the side of her forehead, "...You?"

Rin nodded, looking around her awkwardly, "Do you think those people that attacked us... Uh... _Made it?_" Rin knew that nobody really died in the war, but you still felt the pain as if it war real. She didn't even want to imagine how it felt to be crushed by a falling building.

Piko shrugged, "I hope not."

The blonde turned and stared at him, horrified. _And to think that she was just starting to warm up to this jerk! _She grunted angrily and stomped off towards the edge of the rubble, leaving Piko behind, "C'mon, we've still gotta get to the tower."

Piko walked after her, trying to ignore the pain all over his body, "Yeah, yeah. You'll get to see..." He trailed off again. There was something grey and slightly translucent just off to the side of Rin, "...Your girlfriend..." It was like a speck of dust on a computer screen, you barely notice it until you try to focus on something, "...Soon... Enough..." He squinted at it. Letters?

Rin snorted and turned around to look at him, "That was the dumbest sentence I've..." She must have seen it too, because she stopped mid-sentence and squinted off to the side. Whatever it was, it looked like it was almost on the other side if the heap of rubble.

As Piko walked closer to it, the letters became slightly bigger and darker so that Piko could make out what it said.

"_F-J-E-nine-two-K-B-seven_..." He read out. The letters and numbers went on and on, more appearing every now and again, "What's that supposed to-"

"It's moving!" Rin exclaimed, leaping over a smoking pile of metal towards it. It finally clicked for Piko, they were messages, and that meant...

Piko stumbled across the uneven ground behind Rin, and the two of them rolled down a steep hill directly towards a surprised Lui.

The taller boy jumped as the partners, now covered in dust and dirt, not to mention blood, just barely avoided slamming into him. Rin stood, stopped for a moment and then immediately began searching for something in the rubble.

Piko stopped in front, new bruises forming on his arms and legs from the fall, and grinned wildly up at him.

"Lui, you're here!" Piko was sure that the chances of meeting up with them before making it to the tower were slim, but he was ecstatic that he wouldn't have to travel alone with Rin any more, "You ok?"

"DD(GKPKT46¥HIKV22222" He replied. Piko's face fell and Lui furrowed his eyebrows. He hadn't been able to make an intelligible message since the alarm had gone off back in the office, and it was becoming a bit of a nuisance.

"Uh. Is that a yes or no?" Lui nodded this time. That, Piko understood.

The older boy looked him over once, Lui didn't look like he had been inside when the bomb went off. He was covered in dust and dirt and his brown eyes were huge and wild, but Piko couldn't find anything more serious than a scrape or two on him. He definitely looked scared and tense, but also generally unscathed. Unlike Piko, who was covered in wounds, but felt like he could fly. Lui must have gotten lucky.

Piko's face brightened again. "That's good! Rin and I were on the roof with some other people when the place went up," He nodded, and chuckled when he saw Luis's eyes widen even more "We were having an epic battle, this guy hit me from behind like a coward and he thought he had me-"

"And he did, you didn't stand a chance," Rin interjected bluntly, standing from where she was searching in the rubble, a concerned look on her face, "Look, I hate to interrupt your little reunion, but where's Oliver?"

Piko's stomach dropped. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind, he was too excited to not be alone with Rin that he hadn't even noticed Oliver's absence. He looked over at Lui again, who looked even more tense than before, if that was possible. The redhead wrapped his arms around himself and shook his head.

_No_. Piko looked around at the huge grey, jagged expanse surrounding the three of them, an "oh my god" escaping his lips. Oliver could be anywhere, and the three of them would never know.

"No._ Oh no,_" Rin said sternly, sensing that Piko was starting to give up, "We're going to find him,"

"How, Rin? He could already be gone!" He snapped back at her. Lui flinched like someone had kicked him, and Piko immediately regretted saying what he did. He lowered his voice, "Players fade out without a trace when they're defeated, he might not even..._ be here_ anymore..."

"That's the point!" Rin growled back at him, "Have you ever even watched a war before? When your partner fades out, you get a notification." She turned towards Lui, "And did you get one of those, Legs?"

He stared back at her, looking a little less like he was going to be sick, and shook his head slowly.

"See? Now let's get looking!" And with that, Rin went back to searching through the broken peices of glass and metal for any sign of their blonde friend.

Without thinking, Lui turned on his heels and ran down a small pathway of flat ground in the towering pile of rubble. He heard Piko call out to him, but he kept running, leaving them behind. Soon, after retracing his steps through the garbage, his shoes clicked against the hard tiles of the lobby floor, the only part of the office building that had survived the explosion, and the shattered string of automatic lights strewn across the floor tried to flicker on, casting a ghostly white glow on the floor and the dust floating in the air.

He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, and looked around. Everything that had looked so pristine and fancy when Oliver and Lui had first entered the room had been reduced to nothing. He gulped, this had to be some kind of sick joke by the admins.

The ceiling had caved in completely from the impact of all the floors above it, some of the pieces had lodged themselves straight through the floor and into the ground underneath. The enormous screens and paintings that once lined the white marble walls of the lobby had fallen from their places and smashed, spreading broken glass all over whatever parts of the floor hasn't already been destroyed. So many huge pieces of the building thrown haphazardly around the area, so many places to get stuck, so many things to get crushed by. He ignored the feeling of hopelessness rising in his throat and began searching.

He had looked for a few minutes with no sign of Oliver, before his eyes caught a tiny flash of navy under a slab of metal that had fallen across the remains of the reception desk.

He felt his heart leap. It was the same colour as Oliver's sweater.

Sucking in a deep breath (and trying not to get his hopes up too much), Lui weaved his way through the least dangerous path in the mess, towards what he hoped was his best friend. Once he was close enough, he could make out an arm jutting out of the smoking remains of the lobby's white ceiling.

He gasped silently and began to pull the burning material away, eventually uncovering a body, then another arm, and a leg, and...

If he could, Lui would have screamed.

**=X=**

"J5¥0H8!::G+7"

Rin almost missed it, it was so far off in the distance that it was barely more than a ghost of the letters. Nevertheless, Rin still noticed it and moved away from a pile of shattered ceiling tiles that she was searching through to try to read it against the orange sky that was quickly darkening into the evening.

Upon see that it was all gibberish, Rin pouted. She was hoping that whatever had happened to the system would wear off and Lui could point then towards where he had come from. He left in such a hurry that Rin never got to ask. To be honest, she had started to give up a little, there was just /so much/ debris and only three of them.

Maybe, she thought, her mood lightening a little, Lui had found Oliver! Maybe that was what he was trying to tell them!

She turned to Piko, who was digging in a pile beside her. She reached over and tapped him on the shoulder, causing the boy to jolt and send the various things in his pile flying.

"Well," Rin chuckled, "At least we know he's not in there!"

"Jesus, Rin!" Piko yelled at her, his face reddening, "What was that for?"

"I only tapped you on the shoulder," she replied calmly, shrugging. Piko opened his mouth to snap a reply, but Rin cut him off, "Look," she pointed to the message, which was already starting to fade away.

Piko's eyes widened and he stood up, wiping the dust off of his jeans. He hoped that this meant what he thought it meant.

"C'mon, before we lose it!" he called to Rin quickly before sprinting off towards the message.

He only ran for a few minutes before he came to the black and white tiles that marked where the lobby used to stand. He looked around at the ravaged landscape and froze in place. Rin came up behind him and gasped, only she didn't stop.

She ran up to the two younger boys on the ground and kneeled beside them. Lui was there, as she had thought, sitting on the ground looking more afraid than when they had found him earlier as he hunched over a broken, bloodstained Oliver.

That wasn't what made Piko's face drain of colour and a sickening feeling bubble up in his stomach, though.

It was Oliver, that much was certain, but, oh god, his face, he couldn't look away.

One side of it was dyed bright red with blood, and a long metal shard jutted straight of his right eye.

Piko thought he was going to throw up on national TV.

=X=

This chapter is a little boring, sorry, but a lot of this is necessary and I thought it would be cool to show how Oliver loses his eye ahahah...

=Review Replies=

Honeycloud of RiverClan: Thank you for pointing out my typoes, but please only criticize my writing if there is a need to change it. I don't see how some if the things you pointed out are wrong. I did fix the ones I found though.

iDontCare: you'll see!

Is it? Dang, I can't seem to write anything completely original,,,,,,, oh well. As I said, you don't need to kill everyone, but doing so means that there's less competition for you!

She wanted them as hostages so that instead of killing them and making enemies with the rest of their team, they could lure the other four out and kill them all, but that doesn't really matter any more because they're dead (probably)!

Also, Rin dying doesn't mean that Piko is automatically out, it just means that he'd be on his own, and he would probably end up getting himself killed anyway ahah.

Thanks again for the review!


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